


loops

by hapful



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Family Bonding, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 11:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6801814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapful/pseuds/hapful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the hall he can hear Mabel make some comment about the current song’s age, followed by Dipper’s agreement and Stan’s exasperated fondness about ‘kids these days,’ about ‘in my day.’ Ford smiles, setting aside the books he was carrying on a nearby table, and just enjoys the sound of family seeped into the old, dusty walls.</p><p>The record stops, Dipper’s voice is muffled as he says something that makes Stan laugh and then another tune starts spilling through the house and</p><p>Ford, he can barely make out the opening notes but the words echo, pointed and suddenly sharp against his skin.</p><p> </p><p>just family bonding hurt/comfort post finale shit</p>
            </blockquote>





	loops

There’s a record player in storage, in a room too large to be a closet but too small to fit all it needs. 

Ford’s rummages through the boxes, memories and supplies and all the evidence of a packrat stuffed into the corners. He hums under his breath, a tune he doesn’t know the words to. The record player nearly slips to the floor from it’s perch on several cardboard boxes but he catches it, tune strangled in his throat, passing into a soft sigh as he straightened.

“Whatcha got there, IQ?”

Bill’s always there, even in the silence, even in the stillness, a piece Ford can almost forget until it stirs once more. He asks in Ford’s head and Ford answers outloud, because he really hasn’t learned, has he? Because even Fiddleford’s long scrutiny can’t break him of a habit that makes it all feel real.

(Because it _is_ real.)

“Just an old record player.” Ford explains, wonders at the fact that Bill already knows, he always did. But Bill asked, he always asks and it’s a comfort, like stepping down, like reaching out, like smiling at Ford with his unblinking eye just around the corners. “It was my mother’s.”

Bill knows, Bill already knew, but Ford still feels his mind pull at old memories, of nights his father was away and he and Ma and — yes, nights she pulled out the old thing, nights she laughed and tried to teach him ( t h e m ) to dance, nights her voice softened around the edges with nostalgia for better times, simpler ones. 

He can feel Bill in the memory, can see that old room from much younger eyes, whips his head around as a shadow passes through with three sharp points and a laugh in time with the music.

“Why’s it catching dust here? C’mon Stanford, lets hear this human music! Y’know I inspired a few fleshbags who could carry a tune in my day.”

 

In the living room Ford shifts through the records, one by one, carefully slipping those deemed worthy out of their sleeve. Bill slides through his skull, sampling and critiquing in turn, chuckling at Ford’s more heated defense of ABBA and hissing at The Bee Gees. 

“This one-“ Bill raises his hand, sways to the beat as a woman from the new record croons promises about meetings and smiles. Ford doesn’t remember it from nights on the shore, only the vaguest recollection that slips through his grasp like sand. “- _this one_ I like.”

Ford considers, lulled by the steady sway of Bill in his skull. _We’ll meet again,_ the record tells him.

“It’s rather melancholy.” He settles for the word tugging at his gut.

And Bill tuts. “Don’t be such a downer, Sixer.”

“I didn’t say it was _bad._ ” Ford quickly amends, a strangely sharp nerve at possible _displeasure_ stabbing up his stomach, hard. Bill knew, of course, all Bill had to do was look, listen, know. “It’s just-“

The singer punctuates his words before he can finish with another _we’ll meet again_ and for Ford the words dredge up partings, dig up inevitability, claw and drag out a face he can’t see yet sees the shell of every time he looks in the mirror.

“Y’know I have quite the pair of pipes.” Bill’s words break him out of recollection, pointed and welcome as Ford airs the old ghosts out of his head. Bill knew, Bill always knew. 

He offers his muse a thin smile. “I can’t argue that.” Because Bill was nothing if not ‘pipes,’ really, just loud, projected, inescapable. “Well, why don’t you sing a refrain?”

“Play it again.” Bill tells him, and Ford pulls the needle back, loops the song again just as the final notes echo through the room.

 

——

 

“You stopped wearing your coat all the time.”

Dipper tells him this out of the blue one day, when they’re both sitting in the kitchen, nursing Pitt Colas and a crossword. Ford’s never been great at the pop culture element and he’s even worse now, finding some clue to be complete gibberish without Dipper’s helpful input. It’s not as though either of them particularly like crosswords but one early morning, one five am that found them both baggy eyed and restless, and somehow a small tradition had sprung forth.

Ford’s happy to amend his feelings on crosswords. When Dipper’s gone he wonders at learning to use the new technology of this world better, messaging Dipper when a particularly stubborn clue ties him down. 

He knows, in truth, he’s just not willing to see the boy or his sister go.

“What?” Ford blinks up from his clue, and it’s difficult to find Dipper’s eyes and hold them. 

He does regardless, and the panic that seizes Dipper makes him frown. It wasn’t a constant panic but it was quicker lately, after everything, after

_— then I sent the kid sailing into a tree! Oh man, you should have seen it. Majestic! And boy, the look on his face when —_

the dust settled. There was a quicker guilt too, weighing the kid’s shoulders, colored with _Great Uncle Ford I… I can’t stay in Gravity Falls, I know I said I would but- but I’m not ready._

Even when Ford told him he understood he could see Dipper’s eyes still reflect some small self loathing, some need to make everyone happy. “Just- you know! I noticed. I’d never seen you without your coat much before, but lately-“

Ford smiles, places the paper down as Dipper stutters, and taps the brim of the boy’s hat. It has the desired effect for the moment, Dipper’s nerves ease and Ford takes the time to consider his words.

“You’re certainly right about that.” He offers, thinks of the coat hung up in his room. Sometimes, even now, he felt like a target without it, a strange, vulnerable feeling that passed when he closed his eyes and willed it away for long enough. Sometimes it didn’t. “I suppose now that I’m able to spend more time topside it was… natural.”

“Mabel says it’s character development.” Dipper mentions, making Ford’s eyebrows rise. He hastily explains, “Uh, you know, like when people on tv cut their hair because they’re… different?”

Ford can’t help it, he chuckles, and he’s glad when Dipper seems to ease all the more at that, comfortable. Ford shrugs. “Ah, good to know I’m progressing. I assume this is good development, right?”

“Yeah!” Dipper answers, then pauses, then watches him quietly. “I mean, I hope it is. You’re… doing alright, aren’t you, Great Uncle Ford?”

There’s a part of Ford that looks at his eyes, waits just a beat to see if they’d shift. There’s a part that hears the genuine concern lacing Dipper’s words and thinks of how kind others once were, how kind Bill had been, only to burrow so deeply in Ford’s life so he could tear it apart from the inside out. There’s a part that always wonders when the other shoe will fall.

The beat of silence brings unease back to Dipper’s eyes, shadows of doubt and Ford pushes past the parts of himself to something new. “I will be, Dipper, just like we all will. Just like you will as well, I hope.”

It’s not a lie and Dipper recognizes it as such, nods softly, understands in a way that softens Ford’s heart.

 

——

 

There’s music filtering in from the living room, accented by laughter and chatter. A living, thriving house.

From the hall he can hear Mabel make some comment about the current song’s age, followed by Dipper’s agreement and Stan’s exasperated fondness about ‘kids these days,’ about ‘in my day.’ Ford smiles, setting aside the books he was carrying on a nearby table, and just enjoys the sound of family seeped into the old, dusty walls.

The record stops, Dipper’s voice is muffled as he says something that makes Stan laugh and then another tune starts spilling through the house and

Ford, he can barely make out the opening notes but the words echo, pointed and suddenly sharp against his skin.

His feet are on autopilot, his hand stopping to grip the doorframe to the living room where his family has gathered. He can see them but they’re far away, blurry just around the edges, out of focus in his own thoughts more than his eyes and that song, that particular song from that particular old, rickety record player—

He tries to think of his family standing there but the words in the air are telling him about partings and the promise, that ever present hope ( t h r e a t ) that another meeting would soon follow. It’s a loop, he thinks like buzzing, maybe like a snake eating it’s own tail or record spinning to a close only to start again and again and again.

_Play it again, Sixer_

His skin crawls like creeping, like lightning, like _electricity_ down his back and he struggles to force air into his lungs. He breaths like a loop, in and out, a beginning and an end and a beginning again because it never stopped, it never stops, he’s in the living room like

 _well then sing a refrain, show me these ‘pipes’_

then laughter that bounces off the walls skull his h e a d and 

_keep smiling through, just like you always do!_

then laughter that bounces off obsidian and the blood pooling in his mouth

he spits it out in globs, right on the floor, as sharp palms press into his jaw, pull him up

_smile, sixer, this is our song_

_til the blue skies drive dark clouds F A R A W A Y_

The record screeches and he wants to say _fuck you_ , he wants to say _rot in hell_ , he wants to say _sing it again_ because then was more here than there. His eyes press shut, tight enough to see bursts of stars along his lids, there’s a pressure on his arm that’s tight and through the buzzing he thinks about far, far away, about how Bill knew, about how Bill always knew.

The white noise fades and his arm hurts numbly, straining fingers pressed into his skin, five of them. When he tries to sluggishly glance up Stan’s face is there, Stan’s mouth is moving like he’s speaking, his brow is furrowed and Ford thinks _why is he here?_

When he snaps back it’s with a gulp of air to his already heaving lungs. There are eyes on him, Stan’s and the kids’ and—

“Sorry.” He mutters, he thinks he mutters, and pulls away.

He heads as far as he can think to go, as far as his feet think to take him, up and away and to the attic. His grip is tight on the railing, his footstep silent over that first step Soos finally fixed. At the top of the stairs he stops and thinks _how stupid_ , to come up here, to trap himself with no way down except through the stairs and hall where he could easily be intercepted. He thinks _how obvious,_ it was a simple matter to avoid a room that wasn’t his anymore, that even if the kids were giving him space they’d need to come up sometime. 

He glances across the room, to the triangular window that still offered light into the cramped place. He slumps against the doorframe to the kids’ space and smothers his breath against his palms.

—

There’s panic crawling up his throat.

It escapes in a dry gasp and the truth is the song might have been an omen. He hates it, he _hates it hates it hates it_ but it tugs at his attention whenever he tries to turn away.

The truth is the song might be an omen, or a promise, or a t h r e a t and he, a lowly human too naivearrogantfoolish to see Bill Cipher for what he really was would never know.

His lungs feel overworked, his breath feels dry and hot in the attic’s still air. There’s a part of him that knows that Bill’s corpse wants this, wants him to wonder, wants him to hear an old song and think _is this real?_ to wonder _did I escape?_ like Bill’s laughter and singing and words were a tangible leash around his neck even now. There’s part of him that knows it must be reality, because there are signs, aren’t there? He’s watched closely, watched Stan, watched the kids, watched the town and their lives moving on. Even ages later he still watched. Even a lifetime come and gone he still waited.

The part of him that waits runs his fingertips over the wooden floor, feeling for obsidian. The part of him that didn’t know what reality was tries to taste for old blood on his tongue. Underneath him, under the floorboards where what he hoped was his family were there was no music, just a quiet that rung through the house.

Ford breaths out his nose, then through his mouth, like a cycle, like a loop.

The creak of feet on the stairs made him wince. He buries the grimace as the steps reached their destination.

He knows it’s was Stan before Stan opens his mouth. “Ford?”

Ford swallows at the dry cracking down his throat. He tries to remember reality and can’t bring himself to look up at Stan’s eyes, just incase they were yellow, long and laughing. He says nothing.

Stan sighs, something he no doubt hopes is quiet, but moves further in all the same. Ford won’t look at him but his brother takes a seat across from him, on the other side of the doorframe Ford’s hunched in, letting his legs stretch out close to Ford’s side. “Was it the song?”

Ford chews his cheek, glancing down at his hands, counting his breathing to the rhythmic twitch of his fingers. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. 

Ford breaths. “What do you mean?”

One, two, three, four, five, six. The breath that escapes Stan’s lungs doesn’t sound impressed, and a voice in Ford says _you sound just like Dad when you have that tone._ He swallows it and loses count.

“You froze up like a statue, Ford, thought you might be having a heart attack or something.” Stan mumbles, and Ford’s chest seizes like electrocution paralyzing his muscles and he 

he wants to say _not yet_ and maybe laugh, maybe demand answers, maybe like _how do you know?_ or _not 92 yet am I, Bill?_

“-staring at the record player.”

Stan’s still speaking, Ford remembers. Whatever was in Stan’s skin was still speaking, tone uncertain as it continues. “I got rid of it.”

“Got… what?” Ford asks, finally glancing up, not to Stan’s eyes but past his ear. Stan’s tone is a quiet sound.

“The record.”

Ford tries to function, to think of the right thing to say. It tumbles off his tongue clumsily. “You didn’t have to do that.” Automatic, safe. He thinks he should be proud but he suppresses a shudder instead. 

He can feel Stan’s eyes on him. He watches Stan shrug. “I didn’t like that song much anyway. Kinda mopey, if y’ask me.”

The breath that escapes Ford’s throat feels like it might have been a laugh once, stillborn and heavy on his lips. Stan shifts and Ford tries not to tense, tries to think of what the next right thing to say is, _tries_ and comes up blank. Stan’s at his side now, and Ford doesn’t look at his face. 

“Look, I wanna-“ Stan sounds frustrated, Ford thinks, like he’s fighting uphill. It’s familiar, nostalgic, a little lost. “I ain’t broken or decrepit, Stanford, even if my mind’s still a damn mess. I wanna help, alright? I don’t- I don’t get it, but I want to. Just-“

They’re kids again, Ford wonders at almost airily, and when he finally does glance up at Stan’s eyes they’re white, brown and black as they’ve always been. “I wanna help. Talk to me.”

A lifetime ago Stan didn’t ask to talk, didn’t think he needed to ask. Sometimes Stan said the right thing, caught the right tone or look, sat down next to him and let Ford spill when he cracked. A lifetime ago they were teenagers, not old men who spent more time apart than even in the same state, the same world. They weren’t old men whose only company with each other came from memories and hopeful wishes and spite.

Like they were kids again Ford felt something crack. He just barely manages to catch it between his fingers before it spilled.

He says, “I’m glad you got rid of the record.”

Stan keeps his peace, Ford can’t look at him so he doesn’t try. Stan sits back as much as he’s allowed, his ankle pressed against Ford’s. The contact feels real, and Ford breaths as Stan murmurs back. 

“It ain’t a thank you but I’ll take it.”

The spike of humor, the twinge of old, bad feeling is real, and Ford’s breath releases shaky, shuddering but amused. He thinks Stan is smiling, this real Stan, not the fragments of a dream birthed from Bill’s ill intentions. 

He almost says thank you but the words die in the silence between them.

 

——

 

There’s two days before the kids leave again, and Mabel’s dashing at his heels.

“You’re going to love it, Grunkle Ford!” She promises, not the first time and he assumes not the last if her boundless energy has anything to say about it. He humors her, he’s happy to humor her, to follow with a slight smile even if the parts of him still feel old and frayed at the edges. 

It was a loop, he imagines, falling and dusting off and getting back on his feet again. A beginning and an end, over and over and over, until—

“Now I realized you haven’t gotten to hear the sweet new tunes of today!” Mabel tells him and he refocuses, brow quirking, “And what kind of niece would I be if I didn’t give you a heads up? The _worst_ , Grunkle Ford. I have a best niece sweater to live up to!”

“Tunes?” Ford tries, a sinking feeling down his spine as she nods.

“Yeah, that’s the old person word for it, right? You know, music!” She plugs what he learned some time ago was an iPod to a small stereo, cycling through the screen with a hum.

 _Ah_ , he thinks, _so it’s about that_ , and jolt of information makes him feel ( p a t h e t i c ) tired, embarrassed, maybe shameful right through the bits of him. He wonders if Stan put her up to it, or if they all spoke about his state behind closed doors, like some soft voiced council afraid being too direct would make him crack down the middle. He wonders if they watched him when his back was turned, he wonders if his little ( p a t h e t i c ) episode tainted the end of the trip.

(He wonders things like _why_ do they bother, this was all _my_ fault, but crushes it down. He wonders things like _why_ do you think I need help, _I_ can handle myself, I can handle myself, but smothers that too.)

Mabel looks at him like she was talking and he smiles back, quick, tight. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, what was that, my dear?”

“I said we’re starting with the classics!” She tells him, and he fidgets, fights the urge to find a reason to leave rather than force whatever duty Mabel no doubt thought she had to perform. “And by classics I mean boy bands, Grunkle Ford. Boy bands.”

“Boy bands.” He repeats, because she certainly seemed to think it bore repeating, and by the way she beamed he assumed it was the correct response.

“Only the best for my grunkles.” Mabel’s tone was one of pride, shifting to softness, just a touch, just here and there. “Music should be fun, you know?”

Ford swallows whatever automatic response was triggered on his tongue, he swallows it deep. There’s that bit of him that feels patheticshameexhaustion, a bit that knows he should feel grateful and happy and loved even if it wasn’t all there yet.

He tries though, he looks at Mabel with the soft edges around her eyes, with the iPod in hand, and smiles softly back. “Well, let’s hear it. I’ll have to hear a few to really get a feel for this new age of music.”

She grins, pops the first song on, lets it blare through the room with a series of young men promising a non threatening kind of devotion to their ‘baby.’ 

His foot is tapping a minute in and he says, “This… is really very catchy.”

By the third song Mabel insists on showing him ‘moves,’ and by the fifth she’s standing on his feet as he tries to explain to her a particularly intricate dance step he remembered seeing sometime in college. 

 

——

 

They find good diners out there, Ford and Stan, cheap food and cheap service that still smiles at a pair of old men that smell a little like sand and a lot like salt. This one isn’t any different, it smells like grease and Stan’s burger is so close to undercooked Ford almost forbids him to eat it.

Stan does anyway, and Ford rolls his eyes, like clockwork. They sit in their own booth, Stan and his undercooked meal, Ford and his half finished BLT.

Ford doesn’t know why but he says, “Bill liked that song.”

Stan’s halfway through a bite of his burger, ketchup gushing in unseemly currents off the sides and over his plate. He pauses, bite still half down his throat, the sauce staining the side of his mouth. Ford can see it all from the reflection of the window he’s gazing out of, and it’s enough to make his lips quirk.

When Stan recovers it’s with a swallow and a cautious tone, like unknown territory. “Yeah?” Ford can see it, the gears turning until they snap. “The record?”

“That’s the one.” He responds, not looking at Stan’s eyes directly but watching the white brown black in the window, the same as it’s ever been. Stan, just the same as he always was. “Maybe part of him knew if he ever was banished it’d sound like an omen. He did… did always like theatrics.”

 _Tell them it won’t be long,_ his mind supplies melodiously. He doesn’t cringe but Stan does, a grimace from somewhere deep inside him. 

Ford continues and he still isn’t sure why this back end diner felt like the right confessional.“Before I knew what he was I’d play it for him, sometimes. Later, much later, he played and-“

He trails off, and this time he can’t look at Stan, even his reflection in the window. From under the table Stan’s foot shifts, knocking his, a quiet, solid anchor. Reality.

“You killed ‘im.” Stan says.

“ _You_ killed him.” Ford corrects.

“Nah, _we_ killed ‘im.” Stan shoots right back. “Together.”

“Together.” Ford echoes hollowly, and he wonders if Stan’s head still has it’s gaps, just caverns that echoed just as hollowly back.

“He was desperate in the end, y’know.” Stan’s words make him glance over, a clenching in his gut deep and sharp. “No big dramatic omens, no ‘haha, you think you beat me?’ He was beggin’, Ford. For a deal, for a way out, a man with an escape plan doesn’t do that.”

Ford sucks in a breath, then another, trying to count the twitches of his fingers in onetwothreeforfivesix. There’s satisfaction there, a jagged sort of smile fueled with a bitterness deeper than he could say but it was satisfaction, wasn’t it? It was the end to a frayed loop, an ending with no beginning to follow.

He wants to believe that. He _has_ to believe that. 

He looks up to Stan, watching him with his own frayed edges, uncertainty and determination that characterized him since they were young. He doesn’t know why, he can’t figure it out but he says, “Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll look at you and it—“

Yellow eyes. Laughter. _How’d you like the show, kid?_

_Enough of that, now let’s go back to business._

“— it was him all along.”

Ford watches Stan’s shoulder, Stan’s throat as he swallows. “Yeah,” Stan murmurs, “I know.”

Something in the tired admission from Stan grips Ford hard, mercilessly. “I know it- I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Stan waves a hand, a fine tension trembling through his fingers. “That’s not what y’always see, right?”

Ford forces his lips to quirk just so, a concession, an attempt. “Right now I see a slob.”

He pokes the side of his own mouth, watching Stan process and wipe the ketchup that was still smeared at the corner of his lips in a huff. “Hardy har, like you’re any better sometimes.” It’s a little easier exhale in amusement, even if he still felt thick.

“If that asshole ever came back I’d tear him apart, brick by damn brick.” Stan tosses his napkin aside, forcefully, as if it helped make his point. “You wouldn’t even have a chance to wave him goodbye.”

“I don’t need you to protect me from boogeymen, Stanley.” Ford responds, lacking any real bite, and the lump inching up his throat feels pathetic. 

“Yeah well… I don’t care. I’d do it anyway.” Stan shrugs. “Even if y’still don’t know how to be gracious about it.”

“I think you mean grateful.” 

“Y’know what, I change my mind.” 

Stan kicks at his ankle, hard enough to jostle but not enough to convey any ill will. When Ford glances at him he’s grinning, and Ford grins back, and it isn’t all that hard. 

On their way back to the boat Ford keeps his hands deep in his pockets, thinks in a loop. Stan’s by his side, and he finds himself finally saying something into the silence between them. “Thanks, Stan.”

He doesn’t look to catch whatever Stan’s face may be telling him. The way Stan bumps their arms together is enough.

 

——

 

Even with the rhythmic rock of the waves against the boat Ford can’t sleep. He stares at the ceiling, at the bunk above him where Stan snores like hacking. He counts to six with his fingers, one two three four five six, then again, then again.

By the twentieth time he fidgets, sighs, and gets up.

There’s a dream chasing the edge of his thoughts, a sheen of sweat he woke up to still clinging to his back. Out of the safety of his covers the air of the cabin is chilled, sending a shiver down his spine as he yawns and shuffles across the floor to his work desk.

Ford taps his fingers against the desk as he sits, breaths in and out through the one two three four five six, eyes closed and uncomfortably dry in his skull. He tries not to think, not really, just a heady exhaustion pressing down his shoulders and the creak of the boat. 

He pops open their shared laptop, his and Stan’s, mostly his due to how much time he spent pecking away at it to record or discover new information. Stan gave up having an equal share of the device a long time ago, grumbling rather loudly and pointedly on the matter but seemingly content to leave it be. A rather abrupt snort from his still sleeping brother makes Ford smirk, amusement cut only by the chime of Skype on his screen.

The message is simple, sent by Mabel: _why arent u sleeping!!!_

Ford pauses, calculating the time zone difference - sometime in the afternoon for the kids, sometime well past the dead of night for them - and answers: _I don’t have a bedtime_

He considers using one of the faces to make his point, even scrolls through some when Mabel answers with a series of emotes that make it very clear she was unimpressed by this response. Ford smothers a laugh in his palm, picking out something that looked like an angel before sending it back.

After a beat he gets an _wait im calling!_ followed by said call popping up on the screen. He presses answer without thinking, hastily leaning forward and lowering the volume for Stan’s sake.

Mabel’s face on the screen was grinning, arm hooked around Dipper’s neck. From the way he still had his coat on and bag slung over his shoulder Ford assumes her prey was freshly caught through the door.

“Don’t old men need sleep like, all the time?” She asks, struggling as Dipper tries to escape.

“Hey Great Uncle Ford!” Dipper does manage through their impromptu wrestling match, and Ford smiles at the pair and their antics, the heavy ache of his shoulders easing with his tension.

Ford waves a hand. “Well Mabel, scientifically speaking people of higher ages can go as little as -“

Mabel blows a raspberry, cutting him off like a game show buzzer just as Dipper finally gains the upper hand and escapes her grasp with a groan. “Mabel let me put my bags down and- oh, Great Uncle Ford, I got those last notes you sent and-“

“And the salt water taffy!” Mabel interrupts. “Waddles ate like half of it but he _so_ enjoyed it.”

“That’s because you fed it to him! And stop interrupting me!” Dipper grouses. “We’re talking about _science_.”

“Salt water taffy’s probably science!” 

“Salt water taffy’s definitely a science, my dear.” Ford breaks up the impromptu row solemnly, shoulders nearly shaking in amusement as this concession makes the twins enter a new bout regarding the fate of half their taffy to Waddles and which was clearly the best flavor.

He rests his elbows on the table, listening more than contributing, the sound of their back and forth washing over the small cabin. He wonders blearily if it was soothing to Stan, given his brother’s snoring and rustling quieted to near silence, and he closes his eyes.

When he wakes up again there’s a smell of coffee throughout the cabin, and his Skype window has _goodnight grunkle ford_ and an extravagant series of faces to follow.


End file.
